


Kid + Plane + Drinks + Apologies

by Anonymous



Series: Mac + Desi + Zayn [8]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Bisexual!Desi, In which they're actually forced to talk to each other and things start to look okay, Multi, Pansexual!Mac, S4E03, Self-Indulgent, nonbinary OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24872242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Maybe a couple missions, a determined partner, and a kid are what Mac and Desi need to finally fix things.
Relationships: Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)/Original Character(s), Angus MacGyver/Desiree "Desi" Nguyen, Desiree "Desi" Nguyen/Original Character(s)
Series: Mac + Desi + Zayn [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1374475
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: Anonymous





	Kid + Plane + Drinks + Apologies

Desi could fly the plane. That was why she had taken the zipline. Zayn could perform first aid and minor maintenance, and they were great with kids. That’s why they’d taken the zipline. 

There was not a good explanation for why Mac had taken the zipline, she reflected grumpily as she stared up at him on top of her from where she’d had to haul him into the plane. 

“Mac, what the fuck?” she demanded. 

“Language!” Zayn chided. “There’s a kid here.” They patted Asher’s hand. 

He groaned, rolling off of Desi. “Trust me, I didn’t mean to. I was trying to stop them; I knew it was going to break.” He winced and rotated his shoulder, still a little pale from hanging off the edge of the plane.

“It broke because of your extra weight,” Desi replied testily. “It would’ve been fine otherwise.”

Zayn made a noncommittal noise in the back of their throat that Desi appreciated, because it wasn’t an outright disagreement, and she’d take what she can get. “Well, he’s here now,” they pointed out. The plane shook heavily. “Besides, we should take care of...that.”

What had originally been their zipline’s anchor was threatening to down the plane. Desi blew a frustrated breath out of her nose. 

“Help me get it unhooked,” Mac demanded, and they tried, struggling together, but it was no use.

She told him it was gonna bring the plane down, and he kind of rolled her eyes at her and started to do his thing, but she spotted a much more expedient method. “Step aside,” she demanded with a grin Zayn liked to call feral, and then she started hacking at the cable with an axe until it came apart.

Mac looked impressed. She tried not to be too happy about it. Zayn was also impressed, which she focused on, and Asher. 

“Whoa, your girlfriend is _awesome_!”

She and Mac protested at the same moment that they were definitely not together - why did the kid even think that?

Zayn coughed awkwardly. “Uh, my girlfriend, actually.”

Asher knit his brows. “But...you’re a girl.”

“I’m...also not a girl, actually.” Zayn winced. “And I will be happy to explain all of this once we get on the ground, but for now, I need to get a look at your dad, okay?”

Desi snorted and hoped that the fact they were saving this guy’s life would outweigh any annoyance they might incur by apparently introducing the concept of queerness into his kid’s life. How did kids even get this old without knowing, anyway?

Mac slammed the side door shut. Carefully, Zayn wriggled the pilot out of his seat, allowing Desi to strap in and take his place. It’d been awhile since she’d last flown a craft like this, but it’d come back to her. She hoped. With thirty minutes of fuel, she couldn’t afford to wait long.

She directed the rest of her attention towards Mac and Zayn in the back, trying to let it soothe her. It used to make her so calm to see them work together, but now she couldn’t quite relax when Mac was around Zayn. Maybe it wasn’t fair of her, because he’d never laid a hand on them again, but...she worried.

Still, they worked well together, Zayn assessing the heart failure and Mac making a defibrillator for them to shock him back to consciousness. Mac had to tear up the plane to do it, which freaked her out, though she played it off with cocky annoyance.

“No, it’s the AC unit,” Mac assured her. Then, under his breath, he mumbled, “Which you never let me turn on anyways.” 

She couldn’t see his face but she heard a very reproachful “ _Mac_ ” as she turned around. “If you didn’t turn the bedroom into a meat locker,” she snapped back.

“It wasn’t that cold,” Zayn sighed, forgetting themself for just a minute. Desi wondered if Asher would figure out that there was something...complicated with the three of them. 

That’d be a joy of a conversation. But Zayn had already promised to have it, so Desi tried to focus on flying, half listening as Mac explained his plan.

Desi could tell the minute the man awoke because Zayn made a very relieved sigh, the kind that happened after they were seriously doubting themself, and Asher shouted, “Dad!”

Mac explained who they were. Desi gave a backwards wave, and as she looked over her shoulder, she saw Zayn examining a blotch on Ben’s arm. Mac noticed it a minute after they did, having listened to Ben recount his takeoff.

“It’s a poison,” Zayn declared. “I mean, obviously. And it’s a skin contact kind. It seems like it’s predominantly organic in makeup - you can see traces of oil on the skin, like poison ivy - and it’s definitely got a neurotoxin in there causing the paralysis.” Desi wasn’t looking, but she could picture them gnawing on their lip. “This was synthesized; it has to have been intentional.”

Mac made a surprised noise, like he wouldn’t have made that deduction so quickly. Desi felt a swell of pride. “Riley, check the hangar footage.”

Ben, meanwhile, was protesting that there was no way it was deliberate, even as Desi got the footage of the mechanic awkwardly brushing up on Ben’s arm. Pieces were falling into place.

“We need an antidote,” Mac was saying. “Can you -”

“I’m a wizard but not that much,” Zayn replied with a rueful chuckle. “You need to find the guy who poisoned him and get the poison to synthesize the antidote.”

That turned out to be Bozer’s job, and there wasn’t much else to do, so she focused her eyes on the air and wished for Zayn’s company. She got Mac instead.

She huffed. 

“Zayn suggested I come up and we clear the air.” He held up his hands placatingly. “They’re right. We’re working together. We can be professional, right?”

She took a deep breath. Professional. She could do that for the next fifteen minutes. Just to get this plane on the ground.

\---

Desi had never been fond of hospitals, but they were inarguably better than morgues. Especially because if this had gone different, it might’ve been Zayn in the morgue. Or Mac. No, it was definitely better to stand successful around a hospital bed, with her right hand fiddling with the engagement ring on Zayn’s finger, watching a father beam at his son.

A son who seemed rather despondent, in spite of the fact his father had just made a miraculous recovery. Asher excused himself to get water, and Zayn followed after him, leaving Desi to fidget with her own fingers. Mac was onto something with the paperclips. 

Desi did not have strong feelings about kids in general, besides a bit of distrust for people who just announced that they hated kids. She liked specific kids, like Asher, who was clever and brave, and she knew she probably wanted kids of her own some day.

She _really_ wanted kids of her own as she watched Zayn kneel down in front of Asher. The two of them were still in her sightlines, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying, only the way the worry slowly melted off of Asher’s face.

Mac was watching too, looking at Zayn rather sappily. Maybe even thinking the same things Desi was; she knew for a fact that whatever he felt for her, he still had feelings for Zayn (and she couldn’t blame him), and seeing Zayn with kids clearly did something to him.

But she was not going to do anything about it, because she still wasn’t sure she trusted Mac. Well, that wasn’t true. She trusted him, especially after today, just not with the most important person in her life. 

He could build up the courage to tell Zayn himself, and how they chose to react to it was up to them. Which would probably be excitement, Desi thought with a twinge of some mix of jealousy and resentment, because Zayn had been in love with MacGyver since they started working at the Phoenix, and they’d never stopped, not even when he was a fucking mess who hurt them both.

_Kids hear everything._ Desi wondered if Asher had asked what the hell was up with the three of them. She wondered what Zayn would’ve told him.

She edged a little closer to the door.

“Your dad doesn’t realize he’s hurting you,” Zayn was saying. “But I can tell he loves you, and he wants to do right by you. So you say, ‘Hey, Dad, this is how I’ve been feeling,’ and the two of you can talk about it and come up with a solution together. Like a weekly board game night. Or video games,” they added, which got a more enthusiastic response. 

It was pretty good advice, informed by years of negotiation and communication. They’d certainly never learned it from their father, but best to let the past lie. What was important was the kid and the dad in front of them.

Asher nodded. “Thanks.” He bit his lip. “They both love you, too. And I think also each other, even though they fight a lot.”

Damn, Desi was getting read for filth by a ten year old. 

“I hope it works out for you guys,” Asher said solemnly. “And you can be - friends, or whatever it is.”

Clearly that part of the discussion had gone well, at least. And then Desi was stifling a laugh as Zayn scooped Asher up in their arms and swung him around, getting a few giggles from the kid too. They weren’t very physically strong, but they always seemed to have just enough muscle for a good hug. 

Mac was still staring, sappy and dreamy, but with a bit of a sad look in his eye. Desi lied and told herself she didn’t care.

\---

Apparently unsatisfied with their “hey we can be professional” talk on the plane - which Desi would admit hadn’t gotten off to the most promising of starts - Zayn was dragging her by the hand into Mac’s kitchen for another conversation.

“Talk,” they demanded. Desi figured she may as well do something with her hands to make things more bearable, so she started opening a six pack and grabbing the bottles. She popped one open to make this next bit more bearable.

“Fine. You wanna lay it all on the table?” she asked. She could already feel that she was picking more of a fight than Zayn wanted, but she didn’t know how to stop herself. “You’re exasperating. Maddening. And you drive me insane.”

Mac snorted. “Well. Tell me how you really feel.” She couldn’t tell if he was hurt or not. He was just staring at her with those blue eyes, hands on the chip bowl. She’d never been good at reading his emotions off his face.

Zayn was easier; Zayn was not impressed. 

She did manage to rein herself in, though, and get to the part she knew Zayn wanted her to say out loud. “But. When things got dangerous, you were there for me.” Already, she felt more vulnerable than she liked. 

“As you were for me,” Mac replied. So at least there was that. 

Desi was pretty sure she was breaking out in hives. She was allergic to serious conversations. But at the same time, this felt almost...good.

Oh, fuck, she missed him. 

“Look, maybe it’s the adrenaline, but what we lacked as a couple, we made up for as partners.” She couldn’t quite meet his eye. 

“Bullshit.” Zayn finally chose the moment to speak. “What you lacked as a couple was communication, which you are now learning as partners.”

Desi felt herself flush at the admonition.

“We’re more than that, though, right?” Mac asked, and she wanted to say yes, wanted to grab him by his collar and start all over from the beginning.

Instead, she looked down at her hands. “We were,” she said softly.

“Friends, though,” Zayn pointed out. “You could be friends.”

The two of them nodded, standing there and staring. It felt tense, heavy like some of the silences back before she’d ever introduced the two of them, before she’d started kissing him and hating him.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, clearing his throat awkwardly. “I failed you, and you deserved better. I should have gotten help earlier, I should have let you in, I should never have let it get as bad as I did. I’m going to therapy - a lot more now. And I shouldn’t have waited this long to give you a proper apology, even if the only reason Zayn got theirs was because they weren’t that mad.” He ducked his head, embarrassed. 

Desi wanted to call him a coward, but that would be mean, and also unproductive. She didn’t even need Zayn to tell her that one. “I’m sorry too,” she replied. “I should have recognized our” - Zayn glared at her - “ _my_ inability to handle the situation way earlier than I did.” 

Zayn cleared their throat awkwardly. “And I’m sorry I didn’t make you two actually talk while you were still dating.”

“That’s not your job, babe.” Desi shook her head. “I’m in my thirties, I think I can make my own mistakes.”

Zayn giggled at that. “Well, it’s kind of my job, at least now on the team. So you don’t kill each other.” They tilted their head. “I didn’t do half-bad today, hm?”

Mac smiled warmly. “Not at all.”

Desi swallowed. “I don’t have a lot of friends,” she admitted, forcing herself to look at Mac. “But you were the best.”

“Then let’s be that.”

“Let’s be that.” It tugged a smile out of her. She felt...lighter. Like maybe things were going to be okay from now on. But she was still Desi. “If you could work on your whole ‘driving me insane’ thing, that’d be cool.”

“Mmm, no promises.” But he was grinning, and Zayn was smiling that stupid smile they got when they thought about kissing him, and it felt okay.

Zayn grabbed both of them by the t-shirts and dragged them together. “I’m making you hug,” they declared from where they were sandwiched between them.

“I think your reasons may not be purely selfless,” Desi teased.

Mac grinned. “Gotta agree with Des on this one.” And then he dropped a kiss onto the top of their head, only realizing what he’d done _after_ the fact and looking at Desi in panic. 

It was fine. She gave him a reassuring smile. Friends trusted each other, right? And if Zayn could trust him, she could too. Even if it took a bit of work on her part.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back, I have more feels, this is the only love triangle I accept in MacGyver. (That's a lie I also like Mac/Desi/Riley as an OT3)  
> They're getting there! They're putting things back together!  
> Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
